I was completely missing out on recovery even though I was going to a ton of meetings, working with a sponsor, and even helping others, the way my sponsor helped me.
For years I was caught in the comfort zone of sobriety: My new friends in recovery, the meetings, the events we’d attend together and the fresh eyes that were given to me as the result of putting down my crack pipe and picking up a book that told me how to get better. All these things are awesome and essential to my sobriety, and I won’t be ditching any of them any time soon.
But I was missing out on recovery.
I went through the revolving door of 12 step meetings for about 5 years before I finally got sober for good back in 2011. A heartfelt thank you to the wonderful people who never shut the door on me, and let me come and go as I pleased, and who always welcomed me back when I was ready.
The thing is, I was always ready to get sober, but I still didn’t know the secret.
I didn’t know what I must do to stay sober – I needed to get successful. I needed to be proud of the person I was. I needed to be an achiever. I needed to figure out what I wanted to be. I needed to get out of my comfort zone and do things that scared me. I needed to try new things fail a few
times to toughen me up.
I’d think: “I’ve gone to 4 meetings this week and I’m sober. I’m winning my battle”.
Every day that I wasn’t planning for my future, every day that I was hiding out in a meeting instead of dreaming about what I really wanted to do to make myself happy in the upcoming year, all those times I thought “don’t be so hard on yourself, at least you’re sober, and that’s a miracle”, I was slowly being defeated.
I got sucked hard into an average life, and for people like us, that is a deadly place to be.
Nobody can convince me that the “reason she relapsed is because she only goes to two meetings a week and she’s having a tough time with the concept of a higher power.”
Ask me and I’ll tell you: “The reason she relapsed is because, like me, she didn’t have a clear and compelling vision of her future, a clear path and plan of action to get there. She wasn’t excited enough about her life”
That’s why I do what I do.
I help people in recovery not only re-create their lives, I help them get to a level of success and happiness that they have never seen before.
Hope is such a powerful emotion and we must have hope to move forward.
Hope is created by taking 3 simple steps:
1. A vision - where do we want to go?
2. A strategy - How are we going to get there?
3. Action - "Action is the solution and cure to our predicaments" -Ryan Holiday
When we have a clear vision about where we want to go, believe we can get there, and get absolutely electrified about reaching that place, our present identity changes to one of hope and excitement. We are motivated to start taking massive action right away and we start behaving like that person we want to become.
I promise you this is true because it worked for me.
Kelly